'Ugly' judge defeats her mother in libel battle

A mother lost a libel case today against her barrister daughter who claimed she had suffered a childhood of neglect and cruelty.

Constance Briscoe, a part-time judge, made the claims in her book, Ugly.

Her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, said the allegations were a "piece of fiction" and that they had enjoyed a loving relationship within a happy family.

She sued her 51-year-old daughter and publishers Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, who brought out her memoir in January 2006. Both denied libel and said the book was substantially true.

During an emotional 10-day hearing at London's High Court, Ms Briscoe told Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury that her mother repeatedly beat her with a stick for bed-wetting, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

She said that she had plastic surgery to remove the "ugliness" with which her mother taunted her.

The jury's unanimous verdict came after more than a day of deliberation. Outside court, Ms Briscoe broke down in tears. She said she was happy with the verdict and added: "It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career."

Mrs Briscoe-Mitchell's counsel, William Panton, had claimed the mother of 11 had struggled to bring up her children to the best of her ability, providing for them equally.

The assertion was supported by Ms Briscoe's siblings.

Despite Ms Briscoe painting a picture of being regularly punched, kicked and beaten by her mother, she had not complained to police, social services or teachers.

"There were opportunities to complain about ill-treatment - if that ill-treatment had in fact taken place." Ms Briscoe, he added, was "spinning a yarn".

Andrew Caldecott QC, for Ms Briscoe, said the events occurred between 1964 and 1975 when Mrs Briscoe-Mitchell was not a vulnerable elderly lady but in her prime.

He claimed the household was in fact "deeply unhappy" and that Mrs Briscoe-Mitchell was a strict disciplinarian who clashed with some of her other children apart from Constance. The core question was whether Ms Briscoe was "a fantasist or a malicious inventor" or had "done her best to tell the truth of what was a very unhappy childhood".

"This is a book which has its share of errors, but it was properly put in the biography section of a bookshop, not in the fiction section."